LCR23129

CD/24/268

PARTIES:

DIVISION:

SUBJECT:

Appeal of Adjudication Officer Decision No's: ADJ-00050840 (CA-00062497, IR-SC-00002429).

BACKGROUND:

The Worker appealed the Adjudication Officer’s Recommendation to the Labour Court on 26 September 2024 in accordance with Section 13(9) of the Industrial Relations Act, 1969. On 28 August 2024 the Adjudication Officer issued the following Recommendation:

“I recommend, as follows: The employer should engage with the hospital as a matter of urgency through whatever procedures, contracts, policies are available to them to allow for the worker’s dispute to be appropriately processed and addressed. The employer should remind the hospital of the laws of natural justice with regards to allegations made against a worker as it is not clear that due process and procedure has been applied and in particular there remains a never-ending ban on the worker working at the hospital. The employer should work with the hospital to implement policies and procedures that reduces the risks of allowing personnel to pretend to be another worker when working at the hospital in the manner in which may have occurred in this instant case.’’ A Labour Court hearing took place on 23 April 2025.

DECISION:

Background

This is an appeal by the Worker from a Recommendation of an Adjudication Officer (ADJ-00050840, dated 28 August 2024) under section 13(9) of the Industrial Relations Act 1969. There was no appearance on behalf of the Worker’s employer, ICG Medical Limited T/A Clinical 24 (‘the Company’) at the within hearing.

The Dispute

The Worker is a part-time Healthcare Assistant who works on an agency basis with the Company. Prior to the events which give rise to the within dispute she had been regularly deployed to a named hospital in Limerick. The Worker submits, however, that the Company’s failure to close out an investigation into an unfounded allegation about her has led to her being effectively blacklisted by the aforementioned hospital.

The Worker commenced employment with the Company on 20 December 2023. She told the Court that she had been contacted in mid-January 2024 by a representative of the Company and asked if she had worked a shift at the named hospital on 9 January 2024. She replied that she hadn’t been scheduled to work on that date and had not done so. The Worker was then informed that a named colleague had been scheduled to work a shift on that date but that someone else had attended and completed the shift on the colleague’s behalf and had represented themselves as that colleague. The Worker was informed that an initial investigation of the matter was underway in the course of which the colleague in question had identified the Worker as the person who had represented herself as the colleague and had worked the colleague’s shift. The Worker was at the same informed that, for safeguarding reasons, she would not permitted to return to the named hospital.

The Worker was at no stage allowed to view CCTV footage or to see copy statements from any witnesses. She has been permanently barred from working at the named hospital and wishes to have her name cleared and be allowed to return to work there as the hospital in question is in a convenient location for her.

Decision

The Worker presented a very credible and coherent account of her situation which, in the absence of any representation by the Company at the hearing, goes entirely uncontradicted. It appears to the Court that the Company has made a decision that is detrimental to the Worker without having observed even the most elementary rules of natural justice as she was not permitted to view her accuser’s statement or to access material that may well have allowed her to clear her name in full. In the circumstances, the Court recommends that the Company should reverse its decision and take whatever steps are necessary to restore the Worker’s good name with the hospital in question so that she can resume working in that setting.

The Court so decides.

	Signed on behalf of the Labour Court
	Alan Haugh
TH	______________________
10 September 2025	Deputy Chairman

NOTE

Enquiries concerning this Decision should be addressed to Ms Therese Hickey, Court Secretary.